


drain the whole sea

by TomBowline



Category: The Terror (TV 2018)
Genre: Anal Sex, Comeplay, Dirty Talk, Fantasizing, Felching, Genderqueer James Fitzjames (1813-c.1848), Identity Porn, Marriage, Other, POV Captain Francis Crozier, Porn with Feelings, Post-Canon, Rimming, Service Top Francis Crozier, Sexy Extended Metaphors, Somebody Lives/Not Everyone Dies, james "life goals or wife goals" fitzjames
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-02
Updated: 2020-11-02
Packaged: 2021-03-08 02:27:24
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,471
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26778094
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TomBowline/pseuds/TomBowline
Summary: James shook his head and turned to gaze at Francis from his seat at the vanity. “What I mean to ask,” he amended, “is whether you’ve thought of marrying me.”Or, the most roundabout and lusty marriage proposal in recorded unhistory.
Relationships: Captain Francis Crozier/Commander James Fitzjames
Comments: 13
Kudos: 78





	drain the whole sea

**Author's Note:**

> Additional content warnings in end notes. Title from, uh, you know, that one Hozier song. All pronoun switches for James are intentional; James is referred to by “he” and “she” interchangeably in this fic.

James was sat at his toilette, draped in a light and flowing dressing-gown of embroidered silk that made quiet sounds against itself as he combed out his hair. Francis was sat up in bed with his nightshirt on (though he rather expected it would be off again soon), not trying all that hard to concentrate on his book rather than the lovely figure James made. The fire was banked low to keep the spring chill away, and its soft light caught the planes and curves of his lover’s body with a gentle teasing illumination. Francis was quite content. 

Then James asked, offhanded as could be - not even turning from the mirror - “Have you ever thought of marriage?”

It was an odd question, on the face of it. James knew all about his unhappy history with that happiest office, and Francis had thought they’d long laid aside any doubts about his commitment to James. “Not since we have been together,” he replied carefully.

James shook his head, freshly brushed hair whipping about his face with a mind of its own, and turned to gaze at Francis from his seat at the vanity. “What I mean to ask,” he amended, “is whether you’ve thought of marrying me.”

“Y— Come again?” Francis was certain he had confusion writ large across his face. He considered himself and James to be as good as married, in truth, and since _as good as_ was all that could be done about it he had considered no further.

“Oh,” James shrugged. “It is only that I have been rather daydreaming about it lately. I never wanted to be married before you, you know. I never wished to be a groom to some young lady - I believed quite rightly that neither she nor I would be very happy with such a match. And my past associations have been...” He was silent for a moment as he smoothed his dressing-gown quite needlessly where it fell across his knee. “Not of such a sort as would suggest long commitment, we shall say. But now I find myself imagining—” He broke off, examined his fingernails. “Well.”

“Yes?” Francis had set aside his book entirely now, and was doing his best to appear nonchalant as he listened. He could tell that whatever James was driving at was important to him, even if James tried to act otherwise.

James flicked his eyes back up to Francis’ own, and though he colored slightly, his gaze did not waver. “I would wish to be your bride.”

Francis could no longer pretend disinterest. He leant forward, eyes fixed on James. “My bride?” 

James rose with a rustle of silk and came to lean over Francis in the bed. His hair draped down like a sweet-smelling curtain, dimming the lights of fire and lamp in an intimate cocoon about their heads as he spoke. “Your bride, Francis. If you would have me. I would walk down the aisle of the Naval Chapel in a fine white dress that cost us two months’ half-pay together and I would swear myself yours before the eyes of God and everyone we each hold dear. I would have you lift my veil and kiss me in your dress uniform up there below the stained glass and all those dreadful melodramatic paintings of nautical exploits. If you would have me,” he repeated. His face was very close indeed to Francis’ now, dark eyes glimmering.

“You must know by now,” Francis breathed - eyes flickering down to James’ gently curving lips, then back up to his arresting gaze - “that I would have you anytime.”

The kiss was familiar and well-charted, a greeting but not quite an overture - James had more to say, then. When he pulled back it was to vault nimbly over Francis’ legs and brace his shoulder in the pillows, facing his lover with a searching look. “I do wish,” he said earnestly, “that we could _be_ married, you understand.” Francis inclined his head, _Go on._ “I wish we did not need to be so secretive. I want people to see us and know we are in love, not just— not just two washed-up bachelors lodging together until someone eligible comes along.”

“What’s brought this on?” Francis squinted at James uncertainly. “Have you been speaking to Lady Jane Franklin?”

James huffed out a sharp, bitter laugh. “Good god, no. If you must know, Dundy called the other day while you were out and I spent an hour hearing about Miss Priscilla Long, for my sins.”

“Ah,” Francis said simply. Lieutenant Le Vesconte was expecting to be soon engaged, and of course as one of his dearest friends James had been lately honored with several visits to discuss the match. “I understood you to be rather fond of Miss Long.”

“Oh, she’s a fine woman, I’ve no quarrel with her.” James sighed gustily, tipping his head back with pronounced melodrama. “I only wish I could talk about you in the same way. As my sweetheart.” His hand crept over to Francis’ arm to stroke over his sleeve firmly. “My husband.”

“I understand,” Francis murmured - and indeed, he was beginning to. He took James’ rope-callused hand in his own and turned it over with the greatest of care. Imagined a ring on his third finger, a tastefully carven gold band that would tell all who saw, _We are in love._ “And you, my wife.”

“And I, your wife.” James nodded earnestly, hair dancing golden in the lamplight. “Your Mrs Crozier.”

At this point Francis found he could not go a moment longer without kissing him. _Here_ was an overture: Francis’ tongue in James’ mouth, James’ teeth on Francis’ lip. The hand traveling up Francis’ arm and playing across his chest, slipping the buttons of his nightshirt open to stroke over coarse hair and soft flesh. The slide and catch of silk on Francis’ rough hand, giving way to nothing but warm downy skin underneath it as he slid the robe up James’ leg. Here was the beginning of it. 

When Francis had his nightshirt off, as predicted; when James was lying languid and well-kissed with limbs all askew beneath him; when Francis had stroked James’ pretty prick until it stood up tall and pressed into his twitching hole with one, two, three fingers - then James brought it up again. He cupped Francis’ cheek in one hand and brought him in close, whispered on a hiccuping sigh, “Name me, Francis. Give me your name, make me your wife. Please.”

It was a fae entreaty, an old trick. _Give me your name._ Yet Francis would do it in a heartbeat. For who else had wanted Francis’ name as dearly, as ardently as James? James, who had no name, no heritage, no origin of his own. James, shaped from sea foam by the folly of the gods. James, who loved Francis steadily and ineffably. He would take Francis’ ill-kept body, his indiscreet heart, and his middle-bred Irish name and cherish them all with a reverent hunger. He would accept Francis’ name as the gift it had never been. So of course Francis would give it freely.

“Mrs Crozier,” Francis murmured, crowding his mouth to James’ ear. James clenched on his fingers in a shock of tight heat, hips convulsing beneath Francis’ belly. He could feel the smear of fluid James’ eager prick had left on his skin. “My love, my own Mrs Crozier.” 

James was positively thrashing beneath him now, panting and whining. “Francis,” he gasped, “please, please. I need it, I’m ready, please, hell, _Francis_ —”

Francis sealed his own mouth to James’, nipping and soothing at his lips and tongue, and pumped his fingers in once more for good measure before withdrawing them. The sucking sound as James’ hole tried to keep his digits in place was enough to make Francis’ prick twitch and drool against James’ thigh. 

He sighed as he sat back to grease his cock, surveying the mess of James before him. He was sprawled out, still half-wearing his silken gown (which had ridden up out of the way of any stain but would be dreadfully creased as a result), skin kissed by a thin sheen of sweat. His eyes were fluttering closed, his mouth hanging wet and open as he gasped for breath, his neck a taut column bared to Francis’ eyes and lips. His rich brown hair made arcane shapes as it curled across the white pillowcase; his prick appeared bejeweled where beads of fluid trickled down it from the blushing head. What a Venus he made, indeed. Goddess of love and beauty, taking Francis’ name and by her infinite power making it a thing of adoration, a bright thing to be passed between them like lovers’ tokens. Baring herself so sweetly for this rough-hewn Vulcan, this mortal man. How lucky Francis was to have her, his James, his divine and indecorous bride. His Mrs Crozier. He must, he would worship her as she deserved.

He sat forward again and bent down to cup James’ cheek in one hand as he used the other to line up his cock. He felt the slick soft wink of James’ arsehole, trying covetously to suck him in - it was no less bewitching the fiftieth time than it had been the first, and he believed it would be just as much so if they reached five hundred - and pushed into James’ welcoming heat in the same instant he caught her pliant gasping lips in a kiss. It was an arresting sensation, a holy and filthy duality, to have James both suckling on his tongue and clenching around his cock. It was worship, and it needed prayer to accompany it. 

With reverence Francis kissed down James’ jaw from his mouth to whisper in his ear again, “Mrs Crozier, Mrs Crozier. My own, my wife.” James clutched Francis’ back and the back of his neck almost painfully in reply, nodding wildly.

“Yes, yes,” James whined faintly, “yours, your wife, yours, yours—” She ended in a choked gasp as Francis set both hands at her chest and stroked, callused thumbs brushing her dusky nipples. 

“My wife has lovely tits,” Francis hummed as he squeezed and rubbed over them, driving James to squirming beneath him. “Such dainty little fruits—” He bent down to leave a wet toothy kiss on first one nipple, then the other. “And crowned with such marvelous jewels.” 

Francis dropped his hand now to trace around James’ rim, feeling out the stretched furnace slickness of it. “And a pretty cunt she has too,” he continued in a low whisper. The resultant pulse and clench from James had him lose his train of thought for a moment amid the wave of pleasure. “Such,” he gasped, trying to claw back his focus, “such a lovely wet cunny—” He bent again to nip at James’ collarbone, licking sweat from its dips and ridges. “And she opens it just for me.” He punctuated his words with sharp driving thrusts into James’ passage, aiming each time for the spot he knew would bring his lover - his wife - to the peak of pleasure. 

“Yes,” James groaned, “only for you, Francis, husband, yes—”

The convulsive clutch of James’ cunt at his prick combined with the sweet mindless sounds he had dissolved into making had Francis rushing up to his crisis. He drove in once more to James’ twitching channel and was lost to the burning incandescence of pleasure. The hot flood of seed that he pumped into James felt like an offering, a sacrifice of the most pleasurable kind. Yet this sweet ritual was not over - he was called to offer up more.

“Hold fast, love.” Francis set one hand on James’ arsecheek to steady him as he pulled out. “Let me clean you up.” James’ prick twitched and blurted fluid at his words; obediently he squeezed his hole shut to keep any seed from leaking out. Francis dipped his head then, sparing only a cursory open-mouthed kiss to James’ prick (though he could spend an hour on that lovely instrument, his mouth was required elsewhere) before nosing down her sack to the hole that sat pink and twitching in anticipation. This he could offer, this wordless worship with his tongue.

His first flat lick from hole to stones had James loosing a high sharp gasp, hips twitching up to follow Francis’ mouth. Francis pulled James’ cheek gently outward, reached his other hand up to squeeze James’ prick; told him, “Relax now, love.” James did, with dizzying immediacy: a quiet grunt, and his hole unfurled like a flower to let Francis’ seed pour out. Before it could stain the pillow that bolstered James’ hips Francis was there with slipshod swipes of his tongue to lap at his own spend, now pushing it back in with his tongue in a point, now coaxing it out again with soft-mouthed suction. He closed his lips around the well-used ring of flesh and began to suck, dipping his tongue in shallowly to bring out what remained; in the same moment he tightened his hand around James’ cock. Under the hand that gripped James’ hip he could feel his bride’s muscles twitch and quiver; close, she was, taut as a mainsheet in a gale and hips bucking mindlessly to ride Francis’ face and hand. He pulled off with an obscene little sound, caught James’ lidded eyes with his own over the working of his fist and held that dark pooling gaze, licked his lips before speaking in a low rasp: “Mrs Crozier?”

A blink from James, a twitching nod; she seemed beyond words. Francis made his next word low and rumbling, one part tenderness and one part command: “Come.”

He had scarce finished the order when James arched off the bed, breathing high and harshly; her prick pulsed into Francis’ hand with a gulf of slick spend. Francis’ eyes had never left her face, which was half-eclipsed now by the pillow it had been pressed into - what he could see, however; the eyes rolled back, the lips bitten, the color high in his cheeks; well. Francis thought again, without the same heat but with just as much passion, what a lovely wife he had. 

“By Christ,” Francis sighed as he dropped down heavily beside James in the bed, when his teeth had been brushed and a damp flannel run over all that was sticky on the both of them. “I believe you get more joy of my name than I ever have.”

James continued with the delicate work of folding his bare legs perfectly into the space between blankets and bed, pausing only to throw an arm over Francis’ furred chest and take again to idly stroking it. “One of the many advantages of married life, my dear,” came the drowsy reply as she tucked her head into Francis’ shoulder.

**Author's Note:**

> additional warnings:  
> — a little bit of societal homophobia, just in the way that it’s taken as a given that James and Francis can’t be public with their love. (For the record, though, Dundy is almost certainly in on the secret.)  
> — James’ sex characteristics are referred to in both traditionally masculine and traditionally feminine terms. Words used that may be sensitive include "prick", "cock", "tits", and "cunt".  
> — it’s the 1850s, so even though James is genderqueer and living happily with Francis in that knowledge, there are not clearly defined terms and concepts delineating gender non-conformity in the European consciousness at this point. As such the lines between James, a gay man, and James, a genderqueer person, are a little blurred. Basically what I had in mind for James while writing this is the gender feel we still know and love today as “my same-gender attraction is all that ties me to this gender”.


End file.
